The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

February has been a big month for “big data.” Lots of stories about ambitious retailers, government agencies, and insurance and financial firms applying clever algorithms to huge data sets with one goal: patterns of behavior and desire traditionally thought of as “private.” A common theme has been how people get creeped-out when such data mining works as intended and a company or agency learns something personal that one did not divulge, maybe even something secret, maybe even a secret we keep from ourselves. In all this interest there’s always a point when instead of feeling helped or known or well-served, people feel creeped-out. But why? Why does “big data” creep us out? That question has remained pretty much unanswered.

For example, the NY Times ran two stories this month, with follow-ups and tons of commentary: “The Age of Big Data" and “How Companies Learn Your Secrets." Over the last 30 days the “Companies ...” article was both the third most viewed article and the second most frequently linked to by blogs across the entire Times. Here at Forbes, Kashmir Hill’s riff on the “Companies ...” article focussing on Target knowing a high school student was pregnant before her father knew generated an astounding 1.38 million views. Lots of interest indeed.

The comments on these and other “big data” and “data mining” stories and blogs always include the creeped-out experience. Regardless of whether one supports data mining as the wave of the future, urges adaptation to a privacy revolution long since over (see Ken Eisold for a well-formed take), rages against the inhumanity of our emerging culture, becomes a refusenik prodding people to cash-only non-compliance, or adopts a hipster’s stance of bemused observation, there is aways a point at which “big data” begins to feel creepy, shoulder-shaking yuck-inducing creepy. Of course, where the creepy/uncreepy line sits and how firm a line it is varies widely. But it’s there.

I want to suggest two reasons for why big data creeps us out, but they’re only suggestions because the techno-world moves so much faster than research; by the time research gets done, the world has moved on leaving today a perpetual mystery. For example, interesting research is coming out about Facebook. But it’s research about experience with a pre-Timeline Facebook, Facebook before your FB identity was available everywhere. What we’re learning about is yesterday’s Facebook experience, not today’s. With tongue partly in cheek (and humility fully checked at the door) I’ve referred to this inevitable gap in understanding today, an inability to every really know what is going on right now, as the "Essig Uncertainty Principle." So, we do our best with what we know and make suggestions about what is going that hopefully prove helpful, useful, and interesting.

My first suggestion for why big data creeps us out is that we’ve habituated to feeling anonymous, and even lonely, in our public lives and this clashes with that expectation of anonymity. Second, getting creeped-out by big data is analogous to the “uncanny valley” into which people fall when they interact with human-like robots or 3-D animations that are kinda, sorta but not quite human. In other words, we’ve gotten used to feeling unknown and when we do experience an unmistakably accurate version of being known by some techno-corporate other it creeps us out because the understanding is only human-ish.

Anonymity

We’re used to being anonymous. I’m sitting on a bus writing this piece where I’ll sit in a confined space for 90 minutes with 30 or so other people. I, and they, could be anyone. When the driver took my ticket I was not me to him, I was just some anonymous rider who took the aisle seat in the 7th row, driver-side. I settle in, as does everyone else, and the anonymity is familiar and therefore comforting. But the bus company could “know” me: I used a credit card to buy my ticket; I use the free Wi-Fi they provide on the bus. It wouldn’t be that hard to mine my data and figure out I’ve had a cold recently. But if the driver said to me “Hey Todd, how’s that cold you’ve had? We’ve got tissues in the rest room” or announced to the other passengers “Give the 7th row, driver-side passenger plenty of room, he has a cold” I would be totally creeped out, however much I might need those tissues or be glad not to infect my fellow passengers. I want my anonymity on the bus.

In our public lives we’re used to the fact that who we are takes a back seat to what we buy and how much we make. We’ve lost the experience of routinely feeling understood, that small town (or village or shtetl) feeling from when you and your family are known by and know the others around whom you spend your life. We’ve gotten used to urban anonymity and suburban sprawl, to fast food, to always available generic entertainment, to our doctors reduced to “providers” by insurance companies turning a profit by denying needed care. To protect against the daily assaults of not mattering we wrap ourselves in the experience of being anonymous consumers/producers whenever we travel from the haven of family to the heartless world. And we like it.

Our anonymity is familiar and provides comfort. It really is kind of creepy to have it punctured.

Empathy and the “Uncanny Valley”

The “uncanny valley” is a sharply negative emotional reaction when people interact with robots or 3-D animations that are human-like but not fully human. For example, the movie The Polar Express used live action animations to create human-like characters that were not quite human enough so many found the movie creepy.